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Government admits it goofed up export data by $9 billion
Already in spot over issues like corruption, inability to control inflation and throwing FDI in multibrand retail in the cold storage, the Government on Friday admitted that it goofed up on export numbers and inflated the same by $ 9 billion in the April-November period of the current fiscal.
“Every damn number for the last eight months has been revised” Commerce Secretary Rahul Khullar said, conceding the crucial balance of trade deficit was also kept under - valued at $ 107 billion instead of $117 billion.
There was not only mis-classifications but also “error in double counting and all sorts of things” due to problems in the computer software which was recently upgraded, he said.
Having admitted mistakes, Khullar said that at least now “the notion that the Government is deliberately cooking up and telling lies.Has got to stop. How many people will come and tell you that we have goofed up; there was a mistake. I have said it openly there is nothing to hide; there is no shame in admitting that there is something wrong”.
However, he said that even after factoring in mistakes, the exports grew by 33.2 per cent between April-November.
The data goof-up was 4-5 per cent of the export billing and on an average it was inflated by $1 billion a month, Khullar said.
There were doubts on huge growth in exports which was even shown at 82 per cent in July at a time when the manufacturing was going down.
“Exports are still doing pretty damn well. (Earlier) you thought it (growth) would be 40-45 per cent, now it is down to 33 per cent (during April-November this fiscal),” he said.
For the eight month period, total exports have been calculated at $192.7 billion, while imports at $309.5 billion (growth of 30.2 per cent).
The fiscal-end trade gap may be $150-160 billion, he said. Explaining the problem, Khullar said there was amisclassification which meant that goods belonging to one category were shown in a different classification.
As a result, exports of engineering goods alone got inflated by $ 15 billion, while those of petroleum and gems and jewellery were under-estimated by over $12 billion, he said.
“Because of ongoing controversy of how reliable the numbers are, we have gone back to the books. We did find mistakes. We have figured out that of the total export basket of $192.7 billion so far, there has been an error of about $9 billion and that now stand corrected,” Khullar said.
There was no mistakes in the import data. Though the problem of trade deficit was serious, imports are expected to decline in the coming months.
Casting doubts over the export numbers, Kotak Mahindra had said in a recent study that the official export growth data was much higher than the figures reported by the country’s top-500 listed companies.
Meanwhile, growth in India’s exports plummeted to 4.2 per cent year-on-year as the shipments aggregated $22.3 billion in November in the wake of difficult global situation, while imports were up 29.1 per cent to $35.9 billion.
Since slowdown in growth has set in because of factors like eurozone crisis, Khullar said that the total exports for the current fiscal would be in the range of $280 billion.
Earlier, the exports for 2011-12 were projected at $300 billion.
“If Europe slides into proper recession, with all the attendant financial contagion... The entire world economy will slowdown and we could also be impacted,” Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee said in Parliament on Friday.
Due to better performance in the previous months, the country’s exports grew by 33.2 per cent to $192.7 billion in the April-November 2011-12, according to the figures which the Commerce Ministry released as corrected.
Though Khullar gave the export figure for November 2011 at $22.3 billion, he declined to give a comparative data of the same month last year stating “what is sacrosanct is not the monthly number; what is sacrosanct is overall picture”.
In November 2010, exports stood at $21.4 billion according to the official data released earlier.
The country’s imports also rose by 30.2 per cent to $309.5 billion during the eight month period, leaving a trade gap of $116.8 billion, he said.
Imports amounted to $35.9 billion in November, with the monthly deficit of $13.6 billion.
Already in spot over issues like corruption, inability to control inflation and throwing FDI in multibrand retail in the cold storage, the Government on Friday admitted that it goofed up on export numbers and inflated the same by $ 9 billion in the April-November period of the current fiscal.
“Every damn number for the last eight months has been revised” Commerce Secretary Rahul Khullar said, conceding the crucial balance of trade deficit was also kept under - valued at $ 107 billion instead of $117 billion.
There was not only mis-classifications but also “error in double counting and all sorts of things” due to problems in the computer software which was recently upgraded, he said.
Having admitted mistakes, Khullar said that at least now “the notion that the Government is deliberately cooking up and telling lies.Has got to stop. How many people will come and tell you that we have goofed up; there was a mistake. I have said it openly there is nothing to hide; there is no shame in admitting that there is something wrong”.
However, he said that even after factoring in mistakes, the exports grew by 33.2 per cent between April-November.
The data goof-up was 4-5 per cent of the export billing and on an average it was inflated by $1 billion a month, Khullar said.
There were doubts on huge growth in exports which was even shown at 82 per cent in July at a time when the manufacturing was going down.
“Exports are still doing pretty damn well. (Earlier) you thought it (growth) would be 40-45 per cent, now it is down to 33 per cent (during April-November this fiscal),” he said.
For the eight month period, total exports have been calculated at $192.7 billion, while imports at $309.5 billion (growth of 30.2 per cent).
The fiscal-end trade gap may be $150-160 billion, he said. Explaining the problem, Khullar said there was amisclassification which meant that goods belonging to one category were shown in a different classification.
As a result, exports of engineering goods alone got inflated by $ 15 billion, while those of petroleum and gems and jewellery were under-estimated by over $12 billion, he said.
“Because of ongoing controversy of how reliable the numbers are, we have gone back to the books. We did find mistakes. We have figured out that of the total export basket of $192.7 billion so far, there has been an error of about $9 billion and that now stand corrected,” Khullar said.
There was no mistakes in the import data. Though the problem of trade deficit was serious, imports are expected to decline in the coming months.
Casting doubts over the export numbers, Kotak Mahindra had said in a recent study that the official export growth data was much higher than the figures reported by the country’s top-500 listed companies.
Meanwhile, growth in India’s exports plummeted to 4.2 per cent year-on-year as the shipments aggregated $22.3 billion in November in the wake of difficult global situation, while imports were up 29.1 per cent to $35.9 billion.
Since slowdown in growth has set in because of factors like eurozone crisis, Khullar said that the total exports for the current fiscal would be in the range of $280 billion.
Earlier, the exports for 2011-12 were projected at $300 billion.
“If Europe slides into proper recession, with all the attendant financial contagion... The entire world economy will slowdown and we could also be impacted,” Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee said in Parliament on Friday.
Due to better performance in the previous months, the country’s exports grew by 33.2 per cent to $192.7 billion in the April-November 2011-12, according to the figures which the Commerce Ministry released as corrected.
Though Khullar gave the export figure for November 2011 at $22.3 billion, he declined to give a comparative data of the same month last year stating “what is sacrosanct is not the monthly number; what is sacrosanct is overall picture”.
In November 2010, exports stood at $21.4 billion according to the official data released earlier.
The country’s imports also rose by 30.2 per cent to $309.5 billion during the eight month period, leaving a trade gap of $116.8 billion, he said.
Imports amounted to $35.9 billion in November, with the monthly deficit of $13.6 billion.
